Dina Asher-Smith could be the figure to drag female sprinting out of the darkness and into the light

Follow the author of this article

Follow the topics within this article

Dina Asher-Smith poses on the podium after receiving her European Championships gold medalCredit:
AFP

A study in Nature once asserted that when it came to sprinting, women would outpace men in time for the Olympics in 2156.

The extrapolation is not as wild as it might appear. At the first Olympic women’s 100 metres final, in Amsterdam in 1928, gold was grasped by Betty Robinson in 12.2 seconds, 1.4sec longer than it took Canada’s Percy Williams to claim victory in the men’s.